


You Think You Know Me

by orphan_account



Category: Hunger Games (2012), Hunger Games Series - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Character Death, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-15
Updated: 2013-05-15
Packaged: 2017-12-11 23:18:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/804383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Killing is the only thing Cato knows how to do.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Think You Know Me

Cato was fourteen the first time he took a human life. It was an accident. No one believed him, but it was. It was an accident.

It had started the night before, when his parents came to see him. Academy rules were strict; parents were only allowed to see their children four times a year. More often than that and they risked the students developing an emotional attachment. And emotions were bad. Cato had learned that in his decade of training. If nothing else, he had learned that.

His father was a stiff sort of man, a former victor himself, he had been the one to submit Cato’s name to the Academy. And he had been the one to have a word with the Director when it was suggested that Cato wasn’t quite what they were looking for. His mother had never entered the arena, but her older brother had, in fact, he had lost his life in the arena, and he hadn’t been spoken of since.

“I’ve been having a word with your teachers,” Cato’s father stated.

“Yes?”

“They weren’t pleased.”

“They told you that?”

“They said you were soft, weak around the edges.” Cato’s father was twisting the ring around his finger and his brow was furrowed. He refused to look at his son.

“They’re wrong. I can do it. I’ll show them. I’d volunteer this year if they’d let me!” Cato was halfway out of his seat, his hands balled into fists. He wished his father would look at him.

“Sit down before you make a scene,” his mother hissed out of the corner of her mouth.

Cato sank back into his chair and a blush flushed his cheeks. “I’m sorry, mother.”

“Don’t!” His father pounded the arm of his chair with a clenched fist, his voice a low, angry hiss. “Don’t apologise. Tributes apologise. Victors don’t need to.”

Cato opened his mouth but stopped himself just short. But then he didn’t know what to say instead, so he simply bowed his head and shifted in his seat.

“I chose you, Cato, to represent this family. Do not disappoint me.”

“No, father.” Cato managed to lift his head just high enough to see his father watching him out of piercing eyes. He gripped the arms of his chair and forced himself to sit still, to meet that gaze. But he was still the first to blink.

-+-

Cato spent a sleepless night tossing in his bunk. This was the second time his father had said something like this to him, the second time he had found his teachers shaking their heads. There were still nine other boys in training with him. Nine other boys who might take his place at the seventy-fourth games. Cato couldn’t bear to imagine his father’s face if he was turned out of the Academy. He had to do something, had to prove to them that he was the one, the best one.

He drifted to sleep sometime near dawn, but he was plagued by nightmares and he was only too glad when the bell sounded for morning classes.  
His first lesson of the day was sword-fighting. They had been studying it since they were eight years old, but this was the first year when they had real swords. Cato liked the feel of the sword in his hand, liked the weight and strength of it. He imagined that this was what his father talked about when he said a weapon felt good in his hands.

He was sparring with one of the other boys that morning. He had been paired with Jonas a few times in the last couple of months, no doubt as part of the teacher’s campaign to shake the softness out of him. Cato was tall, but Jonas was taller, and even at fourteen he was heavier. He was a brute, powerful and fast and absolutely unyielding. He had strangled one of the other tributes when he was eleven, and that definitely hadn’t been an accident.

“Alright, sissy, let’s get this over with,” Jonas quipped as they stepped onto the training ground.

Cato glared at him. “Come and get it, then.”

Jonas did exactly that. He lashed out once, twice, three times, and Cato only just managed to parry in time. He stumbled backwards, his bones juddering beneath the weight of the blows. He tripped, landed on his butt, felt the cold sing of steel against his throat.

“Too easy, loser.”

“Again.” Cato batted the blade away from his neck and stood up, lifting his sword up once more.

He lost again.

And then once more.

Each time he hit the dirt, each time Jonas landed what would have been the killing blow, Cato got angrier. Angrier than he had ever been. So full of rage that he could barely see, that his free hand was balled into a fist so tight that his nails had bitten through the palms of his hands.

“You lose, squirt.”

“Again.” Cato heaved himself up off the ground, ignoring the pain in his arms, his shoulders, his knees. Ignore it. Stand up. Fight harder. Do better. Make your father proud. Make your father proud.

“I’m bored of this game.” Jonas dismissed him with a flick of the wrist.

Cato lashed with the hilt of his sword, thumping it into Jonas’ arm. “Again,” he demanded.

It was questionable whether Jonas even felt the blow, but he certainly understood its intention. He turned around and now there was that glint in his eyes. That same glint that had been there when he was eleven years old.

“I guess I can beat you down one more time.”

Cato only growled in response. He was the first to lash out this time, putting all of his force behind it. Jonas blocked him, deflecting his blade as easily as he would a wet sponge.

“Come on! You’re not even trying!” Jonas laughed at him, shaking his head.

“Don’t laugh at me.” Cato snapped.

Around them, the other tributes had stopped practicing, had turned to watch their fight. Cato didn’t even notice. He couldn’t see anything but the sneering face before him.

Jonas opened his mouth and laughed louder, a great, booming laugh rolling up from his gut. “Don’t laugh at me!” Cato cried out.

He didn’t really remember the moves. All he knew was that he was lashing out, pushing forward, channelling all of his rage and frustration and everything else down his arm and into the hand that wielded the sword. He could hear himself yelling.

And then it wasn’t a yell anymore, but a scream. And it wasn’t him screaming, but someone else. Cato stopped, suddenly noticed the deep silence that had descended all around him. The screaming had stopped and his ears were ringing. He looked around him, at all the people staring. Then he looked down and saw what they were staring at.

Jonas was lying on the ground in front of him, torn open from his throat right down to his abdomen. His intestines were just visible in the tear and they were steaming in the morning light. Cato couldn’t look away from them, from the strangely beautiful steam curling up off the body. His blade and his hands and his clothes were wet with blood and even as he stood there he felt a drop fall from his hair onto his cheek.

His hands started shaking and the sword fell to the ground. His teacher was coming forward and he was smiling. That was the thing that Cato couldn’t understand. How could he smile? How could he watch a boy cut someone in two and smile about it? The teacher reached out a hand to clap him on the shoulder but Cato ducked away from it, stumbled backwards, suddenly desperate to be somewhere else, anywhere but here with all these people looking at him.

He ran. Ran back into the Academy building, through the empty corridors until he was suddenly overwhelmed by a wave of nausea. He skidded to a stop over a bin and threw up his breakfast. His throat burned with the bile and he was retching so hard he thought he might bring up his stomach with it. But it felt good too, like he was burning the badness out of himself. He imagined that all of the pain, the confusion and fear and sadness over what he had done, all of that was being vomited out of him too. When he stood up he didn’t feel so bad anymore.

-+-

Cato can feel Peeta’s pulse against the back of his arm. His heart is racing and the blood is pounding through his throat. He’s scared, he should be, he’s about to die. Cato is teetering on the edge of the Cornucopia, the mutts are howling down below.

“I can still do this.” He places his hands on Peeta’s either side of Peeta’s head. He’s practiced this move so many times. He’s done it before in these Games. How many people has he killed? He’s lost track. “I can still do this. One more kill.”

Katniss is staring at him, and in her hands, the arrow is staring too.

“It’s the only thing I know how to do.” Cato is almost pleading with her, waiting for that arrow to fly away from her, to release him. “Bring pride to my district.” He doesn’t even care if anyone is listening. “Not that it matters.”

The arrow strikes him in the hand. Cato cries out, releases Peeta, who turns and punches him in the stomach. Cato slips backwards, feels himself falling. The mutts howl in triumph down below. And his last thought, the very last thing before the pain and the rush and the end, he thinks it’s better that the losers die, so they don’t have to face their parents.


End file.
